What makes an action right ?

Hi,
I started a philosophy class today and this was the question that was discussed by the class... i think that it is a very good and interesting question... it is quite difficult to come up wiht an answer as to what makes an action "right"?

i want to see people's thoughts about this...

i think that a "right" action is one which is unselfish towards others...
this still leaves room for you to be able to do good things for yourself...but as long as they do not negatively influence others.

Originally posted by rody084 Hi,
I started a philosophy class today and this was the question that was discussed by the class... i think that it is a very good and interesting question... it is quite difficult to come up wiht an answer as to what makes an action "right"?

i want to see people's thoughts about this...

i think that a "right" action is one which is unselfish towards others...
this still leaves room for you to be able to do good things for yourself...but as long as they do not negatively influence others.

Right is what doesn't hurt and wrong is what does hurt. We have no other way of judging right and wrong. So the answer to your question is, it depends on the situation and the various factors you have to weigh in order to judge what will bring about the least amount of pain. Looking around at my fellow man, I see that the hardest part seems to be reasoning in the long term! It feels good now, but later... Consider the death penalty. If feels good now to take revenge on someone who did something heinous to a loved one, but you and everyone else will pay later as society is reduced to one based on revenge instead of justice (a society where the perp is kept in prison so they can't hurt someone else and especially a society oriented towards preventing evil from happening; recognizing problem children instead of processing them through the system over and over again until they do something really horrible...).

therefore, to me, all is subjective. if my action is being 'true to myself' than it can be considered as right. ironically, there are many times where you learn your greatest lessons by doing the 'wrong' thing.

i also accept the srgument that doing something 'good' for another is really selfish because it makes you feel good.

maybe also a "right" action is dependent on what you as an individual percieve as right...

so maybe that is the only way to define a right action... so maybe there is no universal definitino that everyone can agree to...

i was thinking for awhile that maybe if the person is "good" and their action is "right" to them then maybe it actually is a right action.... but even if the person is "good" then YOU still might not agree that their action is right

What makes an action right? Turn it around and ask yourself what makes an action wrong. Certainly, right is not pleasure nor wrong pain. Pleasure and pain are purely subjective experiences that arise from an individual's tastes and experiences. The funny thing is that all intelectual game playing aside, everyone has a gut instinct for right and wrong. Ask yourself what right is next time someone cuts in line at the theatre :)

And my conclusion as to what makes something 'right' is dependent on what the goal is. The right way to stop hunger, is to eat food. The right way to releive boredom is to do something interesting. To continue doing nothing even though you desire an end to your boredom would be the wrong thing to do.

Although this doesn't sound like ethics, the more indepth you think about it, ethics is nothing more than an extension of this into interpersonal dealings. The fact is, you like having people around you...I mean, you REALLY like having people around you. If you had no friends, no parents, no GF, and everyone outright ignored you, i'd almost guarantee that you would kill yourself. Isolation causes people to go crazy (without exception).

Now, with that in mind, what is the right thing to do? The right thing to do is to have people interact with you. How do you make that happen? You do things which they like to have done to them... doing those things is the 'right' thing to do.... and so on.

Originally posted by ParvinBriggs Ask yourself what right is next time someone cuts in line at the theatre :)

Gut instinct = That is wrong.

Analysis of it: From my perspective as someone behind the cut position: It is wrong, because it works against my getting to the front as fast as possible (It works against my goal).

From his position: It is right insofar as it gets him towards the front, but it is either wrong insofar as it goes towards making the people in the line like him. Whether he cares about that fact or not is another question. If he feels like he won't ever need their help, and he has enough friends/loved ones etc, he may decide that that element of wrongness is irrelevent.

Originally posted by ParvinBriggs What makes an action right? Turn it around and ask yourself what makes an action wrong. Certainly, right is not pleasure nor wrong pain. Pleasure and pain are purely subjective experiences that arise from an individual's tastes and experiences. The funny thing is that all intelectual game playing aside, everyone has a gut instinct for right and wrong. Ask yourself what right is next time someone cuts in line at the theatre :)

I completely disagree. We all know from experience that pain is bad and pleasure is good. It doesn't matter that different things cause different people pleasure or pain. There are always certain situational circumstances.

If you take th e subjective argument, then you can use it to refute any definition of right and wrong. If you believe that killing is wrong, then I can refute it by saying that different things kill different people. While one person may survive a 20-foot fall, another would die.

The while what causes pain or pleasure is dependent upon the person and other situational factors, the existence of pain and pleasure are completely objective.

Yes, I would tend to agree with that too, as I am more of a prescriptive moralist. Right and wrong are what you say they are, and in many cases attempts to rationalise them are rather misguided. There is certainly no universal absolute morality, though there is a general consensus as to a moral code, and thanks to social evolution that is aided usually by simple practicality.

No. right and wrong do not depend on the majority....unlerss u ak that majority specifically

ie: as a few of us just agreed, its all dependent on who you ask and when, and what they believe. So if a majority of people believe that slavery is right, then they will tell u that it is. If you ask the minority though, they will tell you it is not right.